October 1, 2017 Booklist 11 www.booklistonline.com
should be granted more time and money to
investigate whether, as with HPV and cervical cancer, a virus could cause a large number
of breast cancer cases and whether a vaccine
could stop it. Ruddy packs her thoroughly
researched book about the most common
female malignancy in the world with many
wow-worthy tidbits about scientific, political, and medical history. For example, Abbie
Lathrop, a self-taught mouse breeder, collaborated with University of Pennsylvania
pathologist Leo Loeb and found that strains
of mice with a higher incidence of breast
cancer entered puberty at an earlier age and
developed their tumors at an earlier age. In all,
Ruddy offers a fresh take on a disease that still
kills more than 40,000 women in the U.S.
yearly. —Karen Springen

In Shock: My Journey from Deathto Recovery and the RedemptivePower of Hope.

In a gut-wrenching memoir approaching Job-level suffering, Awdish recounts her ordeal as
a doctor-turned-patient and the many changes in her perspective and practice of medicine.
During her seventh month of pregnancy, the

33-year-old Awdish goes into shock due to
profuse internal bleeding.

She is near death and has
an out-of-body experience.
She undergoes emergency
surgery, is placed on a ventilator, and suffers a stroke.
Her baby girl dies. Awdish’s
condition is misdiagnosed
as HELLP syndrome, a
rare combination of liver failure and bleeding during pregnancy. But it is actually the
result of benign liver tumors (hepatic adenomas) that are prone to rupture and massive
bleeding. Half her liver is surgically removed.
She astonishingly returns to work at her demanding, high-pressure job and later gives
birth to a son. Awdish’s emotional tenor is
electric (and understandable): angry, anxious,
self-pitying, vulnerable, even terrified. But
she’s also heroic, smart, and determined. She
ponders notions of risk, failure, remorse, and
empathy in the medical profession. She wonders who or what should ultimately get the
credit for her miraculous survival, the medical
treatment and surgical skills of her physicians,
fate, luck, or God? One thing is certain: Hope
is not just hype. It’s a real force and very potent. — Tony Miksanek

Keto for Cancer: Ketogenic MetabolicTherapy as a Targeted NutritionalStrategy.

By Miriam Kalamian.

Oct. 2017. 400p. illus. Chelsea Green, paper, $29.95

(9781603587013). 616.99.

Starve a cancer cell? Indeed. Kalamian, anutritionist and educator whose 13-year-old son died of brain cancer, argues thatresearch efforts focus too much on geneticsand drugs and not enough on the environ-ment and diet. Tumor cells seem to feed onglucose, so she argues that it makes sense totry a low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet. Withhis introduction, biology professor ThomasSeyfried adds credibility to what he calls a“playbook” for patients and caregivers whowould like to try incorporating “therapeuticketosis” into their standard-of-care oncologytreatment. In her how-to guide, Kalamiancovers meal planning (many fats are friends),fasting (mostly good), calorie restriction(just don’t go overboard), chemo and ra-diation (the weight loss they often causemight drive some of the early reactions totreatment), side effects (an increased risk ofkidney stones), and long-term benefits of theketo diet (improved blood pressure, moreenergy). Though she is an unapologetic ad-vocate, Kalamian does advise readers not toforce a loved one to embrace this nutritionaltherapy. —Karen Springen

The Arts

David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years ofLGBT Music.

By Darryl W. Bullock.

Nov. 2017. 368p. illus. Overlook, $35 (9781468315592).
780.

The music that so fills and enriches our
lives owes a great and too often unsung
debt to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender musicians. In his encyclopedic overview,
Bullock corrects that oversight by turning the
spotlight squarely on LGBT musicians. Presented chronologically—it begins with the
early twentieth century and concludes with
the twenty-first—the book is often as much
social as musical history, the former providing
a welcome context for the latter. But it is musical history, and especially the many LGBT
performers who have populated it, that occupies the heart of the narrative. Bullock
seems to have done prodigious research (the
book boasts 503 source notes), though one
wishes that some of the sources he identifies
were not offered so uncritically, and occasionally his judgment may raise an eyebrow: Was
Liberace really the embodiment of the American Dream? But, on the whole, the book is a
pleasure to read, being insightful and highly
informative, as it clearly establishes the cen-ter-stage position in the music world that
LGBT composers, musicians, and performers
occupy so ably. —Michael Cart

YA: Teen music fans will enjoy this
comprehensive and often intriguing
volume. MC.